Joy Rider: Cheater Pic Goes Viral on Facebook

As of this writing, the picture below has been shared almost 72,000 times on Facebook. It was posted less than 2 days ago.

this dude is in trouble…

What you’re looking at is the inside of a commuter train car. A white male in the 25-50 range is sitting two rows ahead of and facing the iphone-wielding fellow passenger. Above the man’s head is a promotional poster with a woman riding in a train car, with a large caption that says “Joy Rider.”

The original poster put these words along with her photo:

“If this is your husband, I have endured a 2 hour train ride from Philadelphia listening to this loser and his friends brag about their multiple affairs and how their wives are too stupid to catch on. Oh please repost …”

It’s all so perfect, we can’t help but share it. I personally couldn’t resist.

This guy could sue the original post owner and me, perhaps, for libel. He’d have to prove damages to win damages, I hear, but if this post does the job the iphoneographer wanted it to, then this man’s already-existing marriage woes will definitely come to a head. I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer. People can sue anyone for anything.

Will ubiquitous cameras reign in our society’s deteriorating public manners? I doubt it. If we use the NRA stance as a comparison, we can see that more guns in an area doesn’t at all deter or diminish crime rates. In fact, it does just the opposite. Lots of guns=heavy crime area. Of course that could be a chicken/egg argument, but I don’t think it is. More guns equals more violence, because the general public just aren’t all that responsible handling firearms. Plain and simple.

Journalists have been decrying the “democratization” of the news. Everyone’s a photographer, publisher, writer. “News” as an institution has been forever rocked. They say that the general public isn’t all that responsible handling news media. And the pen, my friends, is mightier at times than an Uzi. What to do?

As I mentioned before, the courts will be busy for the next few decades working this stuff out. But the court of public opinion on the subject is still reviewing evidence. What say you about this woman’s post? Delicious secret vengeance? Oppressed women comradery? Or libel waiting its day in court?

I believe that we are experiencing society revolutions, and as there has been an industrial revolution, we are witnessing some sorts of moral revolution, via the information revolution… intense times indeed, in my humble opinion!

Where this falls short of journalism is that there is no proof or sense of due diligence. For all we know this guy was talking up a rival sports team. Or took the photographers favorite seat. Or… Or… Or…

I thought this was an interesting post until you went off on your anti-gun rant. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about because there is vast amounts of evidence to the contrary. But you have an agenda and no facts, evidence or reality will sway you from it.

“The general public just aren’t all that responsible handling firearms.” You spout a ridiculous statement like this and provide no evidence or resource to back it up. I know there are millions of responsible gun-owning citizens out there that would respectfully love to prove you wrong. And not use their legally owned and permitted guns to do it.

Totally irresponsible writing on your part. I hope you choose to wise up and educate yourself.

Let me assure you that I’m actually pro-2nd amendment. Let’s get that out of the way. I grew up in the woods and I’m actually a pretty decent shot. I’m a stepdaughter of a retired Army non-com & navy airman (yes, same guy) who did sick tours in Vietnam and is a retired Keystone cop. I am a proud USAA member and I vote in every. freakin. election. I have a masters degree in a subject that depends heavily on statistical measures, and I’ve used that knowledge to look hard at this issue.
That being said, I want to say this: Nothing comes out of denying that there’s a problem with the way guns are distributed in our current system. Most gun owners are responsible, but still the utilization of the NRA’s gun safety program for kids, http://eddieeagle.nra.org/, is VERY sorely low by gun owners and non-owners. The system of stringers, lack of discussions about mental health, etc., add up to a done broke down system.
I’m not going to bury my head in the sand. I am advocating for a good hard look at ALL the statistics (yes, including the good ones – if people knew how many firearms are in American homes they’d be shocked to learn how low the kill rate is) and we need a massive push in education about firearms and mental health issues, as well as laws that help restrict “loose” sales to the people you probably hate: criminals.
I’m sorry I set off your day. But I do beg you, as a fellow American, to think twice about your aggressiveness on this. Statements like yours just blow this MF-er up, Jim. It doesn’t help our country. Unite, man. And get a little perspective about the grave problems a now-city slicker like me faces everyday: http://guncrisis.org/ <-THAT is general public, too.
So. I know I probably just ticked you off some more, but I'm going to please ask you to just think on it for a day before you respond.
-PurpleCar

I think the problem I have with this is the problem I have with much of what gets posted on Facebook – memes shared without any thought given to them. Were the guys assholes? Probably. But what is it the poster’s business to ruin this guy’s life? It isn’t just “karma’s a bitch” it’s more “what right do you have to BE karma?”. We are being desnsitized to the ramifications of our online speech. Many people share crap political and religious memes with no analytical thought given to them or fact checking.

This just shows how mean so many people can be. Including the poster of the picture.

I often think about who is supposed to deliver Karma. I believe in the Golden Rule as a practice, and that’s about as much as I believe in Karma – as a practice. It seems to work most of the time but I think it’s just an illusion. That being said, let’s ask another question: Do we get to deal out our own sense of justice sometimes? Not sure if we “get to” deal out justice but we definitely try to.
This Facebooker obviously went through a lot of stress listening to this man’s moral decrepitude. A better way to deal with that stress would have been to move seats (if possible). Another approach could have been to ask them to stop being so loud or such braggarts.
Those approaches wouldn’t have felt justified enough for this woman, I’m guessing. She probably felt like the wives should have been warned, but she felt no power to be able to glean identifying information from the braggarts in order to inform the spouses. The poster took to whistleblowing (tattling?) on FB. I get her logic.
You’re right that we’re not understanding the implications of our online speech. I’m not sure if this poster wanted to have a viral situation occur. I shared it on FB and wrote this blog post not because I was angry at the braggart but because I found it fascinating that such a thing was posted and went viral. We need to talk about this. We are years and years away from a standard etiquette. The formal courts and the court of public opinion has yet to bring in a judgment.
-PC

In giving it a little more thought, I also kind of started to think – “when did we become so mean?” That kinda of brings back my point about karma, but further to that in this case I wonder if people are thinking about the fact that their thought process – aka “let’s show this bastard” is almost as mean as what he may have done. It’s the old gossip thing – this was after all hearsay at its core. I know the answer to “when did we become so mean” is that we always have been, it’s just that now the ramifications of such are different. But I’m all for leaving well enough alone and concentrating on trying to be good to others. Maybe I’m personally more of a pacifist, but the whole thing just felt wrong. It felt like anyone who shared it was essentially being nasty, and as someone who was cheated on in my first marriage I can certainly understand THAT – but at the same time – why do it at all? What do you get except smug satisfaction? I know you are into more than just the legalities here since you are also a psychologist. I just wish more people gave THOUGHT to what they were doing online, you know? It’s so easy to say “bastard!” and hit share, just as it is so easy to say “fuck yeah!” to one of those political memes and hit share. In both cases we get a small dopmaine release too, btw!

Not sure I actually buy too much of the dopamine thing. Sure, there’s dopamine, but not enough to influence our behavior as much as is touted. You’re right that it was a gossip thing. I was fascinated like the rest (not for the exact same reasons, but still fascinated enough to share).

Your feelings on this sound like mine, but about bullying: It isn’t a simple situation of one meanie and one victim, and to purport that it is leads us away from dealing with violence effectively. Posting gossipy “revenge” updates on FB doesn’t help anyone. Just like the “gun people” aren’t bothering to read the comments here and are just spouting off, most people don’t have the ability to think the entire way through a line of logic when they’re in the throes of strong emotion.

I too am annoyed at the incendiary political posts and other messiness on social networks, but I can understand the urge and the sense of urgency one feels to share the burn. I try to remember that at the base of it, a person is sharing out of their desire for a better world (in their view). That helps me stay patient when I am really effing annoyed. 🙂

Um, you’re totally wrong about guns. More guns mean less crime. Go read some actual books. It’s illegal guns, in gun-free zones that cause crime. Sorry. No pellet for you even though you pulled the levers you were trained to pull. You need to think for yourself, which makes me wonder if you even tried to investigate if this post was a scam.

I’m split right down the middle on this one. Proper ethics suggests that you always give an offender a chance to come clean on their own (unless public safety is at risk), e.g. I know you are having an affair. You need to tell your spouse. If you don’t, I will. … But it’s obvious the photographer didn’t know him. The other problem I have this one is that the photographer says she endured him and his friends talking about it, which makes it kind of odd that he was singled out. Hmmm … Otherwise, if it turns out true, it is his own fault. When you cheat on a spouse, you’re lying to them and manipulating them every second of the day.

Yeah, I wondered where the other dudes were, too. I guess she could only capture one. But here’s another concern I didn’t mention: cheating on a spouse isn’t the isolated crime it seems to be. Therapists know, unlike the general public, that cheating usually comes at the end of a long line of unaddressed troubles. Cheating is a symptom, not a cause. So, in that light, it’s kind of unfair to point a finger at a “cheater” in a marriage. That being said, though, it would have been best if this man didn’t feel the need to brag about his endeavors. He obviously has a huge relationship problem, and his exploiting that and the FB poster exploiting that are not good decisions.

You’re right that affairs can be the symptom of problems in one OR both OR all three people. We just don’t know. You raise a good point about the bragging. It almost makes me wonder if he wants to be caught. Some people do.